Women's survival 'nothing short of a miracle'

With the train just yards away, the two women make a desperate gamble.

Associated Press

A video camera captured the terrifying plight of two women as a freight train bore down on them as they walked along an 80-foot-high railroad bridge in Indiana.

The women lay down on the tracks as the train went over them and survived the July 10 incident, which happened just before sunrise on a bridge northeast of Bloomington.

The engineer of the 100-car, 14,000-ton coal train activated its emergency brakes when he saw the women, who began to run.

"They're frankly running for their lives at this point in time," Indiana Rail Road spokesman Eric Powell told WTHR-TV on Tuesday while reviewing the video footage from a railroad camera.

The two women had few choices, as jumping from the tracks would have seriously injured or killed them. Instead, one woman lies flat between the tracks immediately, while the other stumbles before doing the same.

"He had thought he had killed the two people here on this bridge," Powell said of the train driver. "... Both duck at the last minute. How they survived that is nothing short of a miracle."

Officials say the women have been identified but have not released their names. Train personnel saw them drive away after they had climbed down from the bridge and wrote down their license plate number.